


The Real You

by Izzy_Grinch



Series: The Inquisitors [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Duty, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Helping Each Other, Honor, Lies, M/M, Military Training, Psychology, Self-Acceptance, coping with who you are and who you have to be, don't care if he's guilty, don't care if he's not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-15 02:50:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9215441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Izzy_Grinch/pseuds/Izzy_Grinch
Summary: Exactly what it says in the tags.“It matters not who you’re trying to seem, but what you do to become that person.”





	

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Настоящий](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8939989) by [Izzy_Grinch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Izzy_Grinch/pseuds/Izzy_Grinch). 



_Heroes show who they are,_  
_Who are you now._  
Smash Into Pieces − Heroes (As We Are)

On the fifth day in Skyhold the Inquisitor comes to him with a request.

“Can you lend me your grindstone?” he asks, looking around without gazing at the empty stalls. His left cheek is painted dark blue with a bruise from a hoof. The horses were struggling under the collapsed and burning smithy, and the Inquisitor, abrading his palms, tried to heave the smoldering rafters off. Blackwall pulled him away by the scruff and is still unsure if that was a right thing to do, for only the thick-skinned brontos have survived the attack on Haven.

“The undercroft’s wheel is fine, Harritt’s quite happy with it, but me, I’m used to work with my own hands,” the Inquisitor shrugs a little in an awkward, boyish manner.

The sharpener caresses the blade almost fondly, elegantly and melodiously. Then again, and again; Blackwall watches it from a distance. The elven fingers are small, however, quick and strong; they should, probably, flit like some butterflies, not roughen of scorches, nor fish out the thin morning ice from a barrel in the yard, nor slide fearlessly along the keen steel edge, checking.

Once done with his daggers, the Inquisitor puts the longest into its sheath, and suddenly, tossing his hand upward, he grabs his hair with a fist and, using the second dirk, the plain one, without any charms on it, he easily cuts the thick braid off.

“What yer doing?!”

The Inquisitor comes closer to the bonfire.

“It means past. Yesterday, when everyone was standing in front of me down there, I realized there’s no more way back. Even if all this− when all this ends,” he lifts the anchor, now sealed and calm, “I won’t get a chance to go back with my life.”

The grip weakens, and his hair, having no time to untwine, turns into ashes. The Inquisitor swings the sling on his shoulder and passes the coarse stone back.

“Thank you.”

There’s a smile on his face, and faint, like the vallaslin on the elven cheekbones, reddish marks on the hone.

Together they examine the walls, ruined by the running time. The wind here is furious. For centuries it’s been racking the brickwork, testing Skyhold’s solidity, and now it tests the Inquisitor, who stares curiously into the white abyss and squints rather of sun than the striking gusts; his short hair, mussed, are bouncing behind the pointy ears. He reminds of Sera a little, but speaks language Blackwall’s more familiar with.

“I wish I was a Grey Warden,” the Inquisitor says.

“Not a very enviable fate.”

The Inquisitor stops to follow the path of the raven, flying towards the main tower. The Herald of death. The Herald of Andraste. And who can tell where the line between them goes?

“Sure. Though you can choose it. Wittingly and willingly. Well, mostly. You know the Blight lies ahead, you feel spawns, you save people,” he minces impulsively the frazil with his boot’s heel. “Me? I just feel my palm itching. The hole in the skies? Even Solas knows more ‘bout.”

Blackwall’s throat is dry like the Hissing Wastes’ sand, where someone’s bones and memories, and truths rest, buried. Someone’s, not his. Blackwall pats the Inquisitor’s shoulder briefly.

“Well, you know the hole must be patched, as well as the Wardens know their only duty is to end the Blight. How? That’s a mercy, you ask yourself such questions.”

The elven back is slouching now, when no one sees the great Herald can be gnawed by doubts. Blackwall’s being gnawed alive, and when the Inquisitor turns around, Blackwall just hopes his eyes are dark enough to hide the lies. The Inquisitor’s eyes are filled with stars, cast in silver.

“Can you teach me to hold a shield?”

“I’ll teach you to wield it,” Blackwall says, grateful for a chance to answer with honesty.

At nights, when the silence of the environing mountains falls over the fortress, they train. The Inquisitor doesn’t sleep well. The Grey Wardens, it’s said, sleep even worse: there’re hordes of monsters, and rivers of crimson, and pleas for help in their dreams. However, Blackwall sleeps deeply, right till the dawn, and he sees nothing more worrying than some foggy silhouettes, but when the Inquisitor wakes him up, stroking his cheek lightly, Blackwall’s heart skips a beat.

Folks sneer at the Inquisitor. They whisper: “He’s got an ugly nuggalope, and yet it’s not the weirdest of his pets.” Pavus drops inadvertently: “Don’t you intend to study magic too?” Varric specifies, cleaning the snow for a camp:

“So, what’s the matter with that shield thing, lad?”

The old trees are crackling of cold, and, like an unwanted thought, the red lirium is tingling piercingly everywhere. The Inquisitor cocks his head, listening keenly.

“I want to be not just a symbol, I want to be able to protect. For real.”

Later all of them stop asking, once he covers fallen Sera and, gliding in the melted mud, parries a giant sword’s blow. He throws his dagger to the archeress, for her bow is broken and the arrows are scattered on the ground, then ducks behind the griffon shield and hurls the last Antivan fire. It seems to be the only reason why they have made it back to the fortress safe and sound.

“We’ve fought Emprise off!”

The Inquisitor storms into the stables, unmounted: his nuggalope helps to evacuate the wounded soldiers. He’s wearing furs with tiny drops of ruby crystals, frozen in, and sunlight, absorbed by his skin. And he still barely reaches Blackwall’s chin, but, reaching it now, he presses his warm mouth to Blackwall’s shut and winded lips. He closes his eyes. He waits for the Inquisitor to move away and then utters stiffly:

“Please, never do this again.”

 The elf hasn’t changed much over the past month. Blackwall’s been scared that pictures of Sahrnia would harden him; that the Templars would break his spirit, his hope, his will; that there’re too many rifts and the anchor is drawing the inquisitor’s strengths too fast. Blackwall is scared because if not all these things, then he himself, Thom Rainer, a dishonorable liar and a coward, will become the on to demolish the Inquisitor down.

But he kisses Blackwall again through the prison bars, through the swallowed anger, through the weeks of suspense and fear, going back to that day on the wall, when this tiny elf, frightened, as every other soul, uncertain, overwhelmed by the present and future, told him: “It matters not who you’re trying to seem, but what you do to become that person.”


End file.
